The news: Walmart is making its stores and website more accessible to members of the blind and low vision community. The retailer partnered with Aira, a mobile app that connects shoppers with sighted interpreters who can act as their eyes within the store, helping them navigate aisles and locate the products they need.

The service is offered for free at Walmart stores and on Walmart.com.

Zoom out: The partnership with Aira is the latest in a series of accessibility initiatives Walmart has implemented to make its stores more inclusive so that shoppers with disabilities can have a positive experience both in-store and online.

• Every Walmart store in the US and Puerto Rico offers “sensory-friendly” hours from 8am to 10am local time each day. No music is played, overhead lights are dimmed, and moving pictures on screens are replaced with static images.
• The retailer is also rolling out Caroline’s Carts to all of its supercenters and neighborhood markets; these carts are designed to help caregivers of children and adults with disabilities navigate stores more easily.

“The reality is, we have tons of shoppers with disabilities who we want to make sure are having as good, if not better, of a shopping experience with us as someone who doesn’t have a disability,” Gayatri Agnew, head of Walmart’s Accessibility Center of Excellence, said in a company blog post.

Our take: Offering services like Aira free of charge to in-store and online shoppers is an easy way for retailers to make their stores more inclusive and improve customer goodwill.

This article is part of EMARKETER’s client-only subscription Briefings—daily newsletters authored by industry analysts who are experts in marketing, advertising, media, and tech trends. To help you finish 2024 strong, and start 2025 off on the right foot, articles like this one—delivering the latest news and insights—are completely free through January 31, 2025. If you want to learn how to get insights like these delivered to your inbox every day, and get access to our data-driven forecasts, reports, and industry benchmarks, schedule a demo with our sales team.